Small Souls Part 20

"Van der Welcke," said Karel. "Did you get that card of mine?"

"What card?"

"Why, when you were expected in town, I called and left a card on you."

"So did I, you know, Van der Welcke," interrupted Van Saetzema.

"Oh, yes," said Van der Welcke. "It was very civil of you fellows. Well, I'll leave a card on you one of these days."

"Oh, I didn't mention it for that!" said Van Saetzema.

"I didn't mention it on that account!" echoed Karel, swelling with geniality. "Only I should have thought it a bore if it had been mislaid."

"Ye-es," whimpered Cateau. "Because then it would have looked as if we weren't friend-ly.... How red the _bride_ looks, Saet-ze-ma! That white makes Em-ilie look so _very_ red."

"Yellow, rather," said Van Saetzema.

"Ye-es," droned Cateau. "Now your Floortje, Saet-ze-ma, looks so _sweet_ in white. And what a _nice_ fellow Dij-kerhof is! Such a thorough _man_.

But how pale Ber-tha looks!"

"Green, rather," said Van der Welcke, very seriously.

Cateau looked up, with her owl's eyes:

"Green?" she repeated, cautiously. "Do you re-ally think Ber-tha looks _green_, Van der Wel-cke? Yes, she is tired, no doubt."

"To-morrow," thought Van der Welcke, "all the Hague will know that I thought Bertha looked green...."

A tableau was discovered in the distance. The idea was Paul's and he explained it to Constance:

"You see, it represents Luxury. The great wheel crushing down upon Marietje and Carolientje is Industry; and Floortje is Luxury, standing in a dancing att.i.tude on Industry and scattering gold and ropes of pearls at twopence a rope. It's not quite clear, perhaps, Luxury standing upon Industry and crushing Marianne and Carolientje. Floortje is fidgeting and giggling. Oh, I must tell you, Adolphine was delighted when she heard that Floortje, her Floortje, was to be Luxury and to crush Bertha's Marianne!"

Constance, surrounded by all her family, was in a gentle, happy mood:

"Oh, Paul, it's a very nice, motherly feeling on Adolphine's part, to like to see her child happy before another...."

Paul spluttered with laughter:

"So you think that Floortje is happy as Luxury, on the top of Marianne and that Marianne suffers badly underneath! Connie, how sentimental you are to-night and what silly things you say!... But you're looking very nice. Come, let's go and sit down here. Your hair is turning grey, but I have an idea that you leave it untouched for some coquettish reason, because it goes so well with your young features. It's a very pretty shade of grey. It's not old hair. But you're young still, you know. And you're looking nice, very nice...."

"I believe you're making fun of me...."

"I love good-looking people; and one sees so few of them. Just glance round the room: all ugly people; one walks crooked, another has a stoop, this one's bust sticks out for miles, that one has a fat stomach. I can't stand parts of the body that bulge: it makes me sick to look at them.... Yes, to be accurate, nearly everybody's ugly. Do you know, if you were to take all the heroines out of all the novels in the world, you'd just get one heap of pretty women. No novelist ever dares take an ugly, squinting, crooked or hump-backed heroine. If I were a rich man, I'd offer a prize for a hideous heroine.... Yes, look at Aunt Lot," and he imitated Mrs. Ruyvenaer's Indian accent, "glitter_ing_ with dia_monds;_ and her two hands patting her brown satin stomach. Another stomach; and I can't stand stomachs.... But good-natured, all the same, is Auntie! Look at Uncle: he's unb.u.t.toned his waistcoat, the rude fellow!... Have you noticed my waistcoat, Connie? It's white drill, it's very smart.... I say, Connie, look at Mamma: what a grand old woman, the way she walks, laughs and talks! Now that's something like: you see at once that she's a great lady. Look at old Mrs. Friesesteijn beside her: common, noisy, spiteful; a figure like a charwoman's. Hideous, hideous!... Look at Ernst, Connie. Would you ever believe that was a brother of mine? Just like an old Jew; and what a dress-coat, what a dress-coat! Where on earth did the beggar get it cut? He spends all his money on jugs and vases!... Look at Gerrit, Connie. He's pretending to be gay again, the jolly hussar, with the broad chest all over lace frogs. Poor fellow, he's dying of melancholy! You don't believe me? It's true, I a.s.sure you.... Look at Adolphine, Connie. Just like a bird talking slander: pip, pip, pip! How Bertha's ears must tingle! Great Heavens, those eyes of Bertha's, always blinking! She ought to have something done to them.... Look at Dorine, Connie. She always looks repulsive.... As a matter of fact, Connie, there are only two good-looking people in the room: Mamma and yourself...."

"And you, Paul...."

"Your husband has a good figure too: he has an attractive back. I have an eye for nice backs. I don't like my own back; and yet my coat sits well, doesn't it? A dress-coat is a very tricky thing. Nowadays, there is hardly a tailor who can cut a good dress-coat. Yes, my waistcoat is very smart: just look at it. The b.u.t.tons are smart, aren't they? They are uncut sapphires. Yes, you have a smart little brother.... Come, take my arm and let's walk round the room. Have you heard: they're all furious, the Ruyvenaers, the Saetzemas, Karel and Cateau, because they were not asked to the first party? The idea was to give it before the signing of the contract, but Otto's arrival came and upset it. He's another failure, that Otto, with his little tissue-paper wife.... Look at those Van Ravens, Connie. They're hanging on for all they're worth to Van Naghel and Bertha, lest they should be degraded at being seen with the Saetzemas.... Tell me, Connie: are you glad to be back? Are you really fond of all these relations?... I don't believe I have that family-affection which you and Mamma have; and Bertha; and Dorine.

Bertha has it in her own house; Dorine and Mamma go scattering kindnesses broadcast over all the children and grandchildren.... I say, Connie, this is what people call enjoying themselves, because two of them are going to get married. But look all round: there's not a soul really enjoying himself. And that's what Van Naghel and Bertha spend a couple of thousand guilders on: giving them some dinner and a dance and letting them gaze at my Luxury, with Floortje dancing on top of Marianne. Look at those faces. Not one is naturally cheerful. Nature, nature, Connie: there's no such thing as nature among people like ourselves! We have not a gesture, not a word, not even a thought that is natural. It's all pose and humbug with every one of us; and n.o.body is taken in by it. Really, it's a disgusting business, a society like ours, what one calls good society. Can't you understand an anarchist loving to fling a bomb into the midst of us: for instance, at Uncle Ruyvenaer's stomach? No anarchist likes a stomach: the stomach is the trademark of the bourgeois.... Now they're going to dance: look how hideously they're spinning round the room. Just like palsied sparrows. We human beings are much too solemn and heavy to dance with any grace. Look, it's almost ghastly. Through all that pretence at elegance and smartness and dancing and gaiety, you can see that one has a stomach-ache and another a head-ache, that Van Naghel is thinking of how they went for him in the Chamber yesterday and Adolphine wondering how she shall make her wedding-parties seem only half as grand as Bertha's. . .."

She let him talk and he never ended: he could go on prattling for ever.

His mother, sisters and nieces often told him to stop, moved away and left him in the midst of his outpourings; but Constance liked him, saw, indeed, a good deal of truth in what he said, in spite of all his humbug. He saw through the people around him with an insight which surprised her and which she was startled to find was not wholly inaccurate. It was certainly true that these people were not simply natural and merry. They had come there from politeness to Bertha and Van Naghel; but, in reality, one was tired, the other envious....

"Auntie," said Emilie, who was walking round the room on Van Raven's arm, "if Paul once gets hold of you, he'll never let you go...."

She called her youngest uncle by his Christian name. She was really a pretty girl, though Paul did not see any good-looking people there, and, by the side of her, her future husband was such a pale, insignificant person that people wondered why she had accepted him. She was rather thin, but there was something dainty, uncommon and original about her in her cloudy white frock; she had a pair of charming eyes of a strangely-twinkling gold-grey, like an unknown jewel; her hair was reddish, with a glint of gold in it; and there were a few tiny freckles on the clear-white complexion which often goes with that hair. She had a pretty laugh, a soft voice, a coaxing way of being nice and saying pleasant things; and, above all, she possessed an innate distinction and, as she pa.s.sed, white and gleaming, she had something, one would almost have said, of a very beautiful alabaster ornament, or of a snowy azalea in the sunlight: a luminous fairness, dainty and transparently veined with palest blue. Constance knew that Emilie had a talent, something more than the usual girlish accomplishment, for painting, but that, in her busy life as a young society-girl, she had never had the opportunity to develop it. And Constance wondered at Van Raven, pale, thin, stuttering, stammering, spruce and yet awkward, with one shoulder higher than the other and his three hairs of a moustache twisted up towards his eyes. He was at the Foreign Office and he belonged to a family whose rigid Dutch orthodoxy was shocked by much in the Van Lowes, in the Van Naghels and especially in the Indian element of the Ruyvenaers: nevertheless, in view of the general reputation for wealth enjoyed by the colonial secretary, they had considered his daughter a suitable match for their son. Van Naghel and Bertha were making her a handsome allowance.

When Emilie and Van Raven pa.s.sed on, exchanging civilities with the guests, Constance expressed her surprise to Paul:

"Can she really be fond of him?"

"She? Not a bit of it! Then why is she marrying him, you ask? That's just the mystery. Van Naghel and Bertha are not husband-hunters, like Adolphine. Louise has had three proposals and refused them all. And why Emilietje--that delicate, white little thing, who really has something nice about her: something artistic, something dainty, something exquisite and, I should say, almost something natural--why she accepted that weedy a.s.s, who puts on German ways on the strength of a fortnight in Berlin, with his moustache twisted _a la Kaiser_ and his stiff military bows, I really cannot tell you. Bertha, who was very glad when Otto got married, cried when Emilietje accepted this chap. The fellow's as stupid as my foot.... Those are neat socks of mine, aren't they?...

Yes, Connie, why do some people get married? Adolphine and Saetzema: why? I ask you, in Heaven's name, why? Otto and Frances: why?"

She felt that he had it on his lips to say:

"And you and Van der Welcke: why?"

But he did not; and he ran on:

"Marriage is a terrible thing, I think. To pick out one among hundreds and say, 'I'll marry you, I'll live with you, I'll sleep with you, I'll eat with you, I'll have children by you, I'll grow old with you, I'll die with you: are you willing?' Great G.o.d, Connie, how is it possible that people ever get married? It's a toss-up always: I shudder when I think of it!"

"Paul, tell me: who are all these people?"

She knew hardly one of the acquaintances: some sixty people lost among the forty members of the family. This was the first time that she had "gone out" again at the Hague; and, although many of the guests had asked to be introduced to her, she had not talked much, had forgotten the names at once. Paul, greatly in his element, explained to her where the people had come from, to what set they belonged: people who did not know or never saw one another, or else did not bow although they knew one another, brought together at this wedding-party because one family knew the Van Naghels and the other the Van Ravens. It was doubtless because of these foreign elements that the party was so stiff, that the conversation was constantly flagging, that the people who did not dance wandered aimlessly around, watching the dancers with a look of resigned martyrdom. Emilietje moved about among them, white, diaphanous and very charming: with Van Raven at her heels, she exchanged a word with every one. Van Naghel and Bertha also were quietly busy as host and hostess, as society-people who are used to that sort of thing and who go through it mechanically, really thinking of what they will have to do next day.

The members of the family kept on popping up among the mere acquaintances. And, in the midst of them all, the most fidgety was Dorine: she was very fussy, as usual, worked herself into a fever collecting things for the cotillion, did not dance, but just trotted about: Paul christened her the camel.

It was strange, perhaps, but Constance felt happy and contented at Paul's side. She had seen nothing of the sort for years; and she felt a certain peace and satisfaction at being in the midst of her own relations. Tears were constantly coming to her eyes: she did not know why. At the first Sunday-evenings at Mamma's, she had not felt this family-affection so intensely, perhaps because she was still too timid.

Oh, how had she ever managed to live through those fourteen lonely years at Brussels! For years she had felt the delight of love, sympathy and friendship only for her child; and now she felt it for all of them.

Through her there pa.s.sed once more that feeling which was so strong in Mamma: an inward glow which she had not known for years, a good, comfortable feeling that she could now grow old, that henceforth she could devote herself to her child, in the familiar atmosphere of home and domesticity. And she did not notice, did not suspect that the family and the acquaintances were stealthily examining her, judging her and condemning her.

"She's a fast woman," said Mrs. Van Raven, Emilie's future mother-in-law, to Mrs. Friesesteijn. "It's a great trial for the Van Naghels to have this sister turning up from Brussels."

"After fourteen years," said the old lady, sharply, eager for news, for scandal, "after fourteen years, to give occasion for rooting up all those old memories!"

And Mrs. Friesesteijn was delighted that Constance had done so.

"She killed her father."

"I knew De Staffelaer. No one ever had a word to say against him."

"During all those years, her husband's people refused to know her."

"I hear that she is intriguing like anything to go down to them now."

"The child is not Van der Welcke's."

"No, his father was an Italian."